I very much enjoy nearly everything David Fitch has to say about the church and culture. But here I am trying to figure out how he figures that “emergent Christianity†is all about conversation over praxis. Of course it is easy to continue to “talk†about conversation vs praxis, and thus remain focused on stirring the pot over engaging in the practices that add ingredients to the localities to which the pot refers. IOW, in moving BEYOND conversation to practice.
But does not Rollins also illustrate the same weakness (indeed it is Derrida’s weakness also according to Zizek and Badiou): that the emerging church often fails to provide the resources to move past conversation into the practice of everyday Christian life?
via the church and postmodern culture: conversation: David Fitch on The Church in the Present Tense.
I’m Puzzled as to what "resources" exist to clear the hurdle ANY church embodiment faces to "move out" into the world and actually DO something beyond "stir the pot, and then blend in"
I must admit that I find just as few churches that have a “Radical Orthodoxy†flavor to be engaged in the manner to which Fitch alludes. (Or just pick a flavor. Any flavor. They all seem to enjoy their own conversations. Heck, I love the term “conversationâ€, and seek out how to expand it and explore all the different ways of having it. But once again, that still seems to be the point at which most people stop. I don’t see this in any way being a vice of the emergent church , unless you want to say that the problem may be particularly difficult there by virtue of the fact that conversation is given such theological weight (as it should be). But there’s practice, still, awaiting our “response†to all these conversations.
We could TALK more about practice and thus make it more of Conversation AND Practice, but then we’re still just TALKING , aren’t we? So how are we to critique the “conversation†re: it’s results in PRACTICE? Almost delves into a chicken vs egg argument as well. Aren’t our conversations needing to be “pre-practice†AND “post practice� IOW, aren’t our conversations going to be re: the results and experiences and critiques of actual practices (post-practice) as much as how our conversations actually act as “resources†for practice vs pulling us into an academic, disengaged conversation about “being engaged� I guess another way of asking this is how our writing and speaking and conversing actually “discourages†talk in favor of praxis? And which “theological†brand does this well? It seems to me to be a deconstruction of conversation , which can easily become a pretty elaborate exercise in keeping us huddled together.
(I wonder if Rollins has seen Fitch’s article here? I’ll get a chance to ask him sometime in the next couple of days at Vanderbilt. Hopefully get it on video as well)
Hi, I am from Australia.
Christians have always liked to pretend that they are involved in a new project in either living or promoting the "authentic gospel" or some kind of grand religious re-awakening.
Such "awakenings" appear like clock-work every 20 or 30 years or so.
Such has always been a common feature of Christianity for forever and a day and and over the world too – but especially in the USA. All of those "religious" revival tents which were a precursor to the internet.
When I was a teenager the principal vector of this phenomenon was the Billy Graham "Crusades". Which left me completely cold as it was obvious to me that it was just show-business and very much in the circus tradition of P T Barnum. And then in the 70's the Jesus People and so on. Before that there was the "moral re-armament" "movement in the UK and Australia.
Never mind that Jesus was not even a Christian! He was an outsider. A radical Spiritual Teacher who appeared and taught on the margins of the tradition of Judaism as it was in his time and place.
While he was alive Saint Jesus of Galilee taught and demonstrated a universal, non-Christian, non-sectarian Spirit-Breathing Spiritual Way of Life. A Way which was essentially a threat to the power and privileges of then then ecclesiastical establishment – which is why they conspired with the Roman state, to have him executed.
You don't really think that if Jesus happened to reappear that he would be even recognized, or even welcome, at your local local church, or cathedral (if you happen to be a "catholic") or at the Vatican or any of the other seats of worldly "religion"-power, anywhere in the world.